


Why You Can't Love Me

by RadicalPrecursor



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Multi, Threats of Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:11:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 13,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1227649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadicalPrecursor/pseuds/RadicalPrecursor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As an apprentice in the Ferelden Circle Anders got himself into no end of trouble.</p>
<p>Inspired by an old kinkmeme prompt about Anders pursuing the older, reluctant Karl, and Karl stepping in to protect him from the unwanted attentions of Uldred.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Just like this, _Enchanter?_ " Anders asked, pouring all the innuendo the sixteen-year-old could manage into the pronunciation of his last word.

Karl Thekla rolled his eyes. "Yes, Anders. Just like that. Now- oh for the love of- Maker!"

The exercise was to snap a carrot in half, heal it, and plant it again. Simple, straightforward. Anders had no trouble with the exercise, clearly, and was now expressing his boredom by making a show of stroking up and down the length of the mended vegetable.

"What? Was I not supposed to check that it worked? What if it only looked like I'd stuck it back together? Magic, it's tricky, and a man has to be thorough, make sure everything is holding nice and firm."

"You should check mine while you're at it," Niall added, offering his carrot to Anders.

"I think Enchanter Thekla should really check both of ours, just to be thorough," Anders said. At that Selene broke into giggles.

"If you could stop stroking each other's carrots for-" Karl was cut off by all three of them bursting into laughter. He tried to look disapprovingly at them, but relented after a moment.

"You said it, not me, Enchanter," Anders said.

The Templar guard cleared his throat loudly enough to be heard from his post several yards away.

"You still need to replant them. The real test is making sure the whole carrot is still alive and growing after a couple days. Now then," Karl said, gesturing towards the dirt.

"Work work work. All it ever is with you. 'Anders dig a hole, Anders plant your carrot, Anders take this seriously, Anders stop fondling my remarkably-luscious beard.' Oh wait, that one hasn't happened… yet."

Karl glared at him for a moment and stroked his beard, allowing a small smile. It was remarkably luscious, if he was allowed to feel conceited for a moment. He knew not to take the flirting personally, but he had to admit it felt nice to imagine himself as attractive to the charismatic youngster. Perhaps this made him a little too eager to play along, but Karl had long since learned to seize whatever joy he could find.

Like the excuse to be outside for a little while. It was why he'd taken this job in the first place; healing was something necessarily done on living tissue but even the brutes in the Templars could see the problem with turning a bunch of complete novices on live animals, so apprentices considering going into healing would start with live plants. And what a happy coincidence that live plants need air, water, and sunshine.

He suspected that was the real reason Anders was here. The lad had always shown more of a taste for destruction and mischief, so unless it really was the seductive power of his beard… Karl smiled for a moment at that thought. No, no. It was clear in his every breath, every movement, Anders' first love was freedom, and for right now being in the experimental garden was the farthest he could get from the tower. So there he was.


	2. Chapter 2

Uldred had following him around the library ranting for what seemed like an age and a half.

"And Leorah was able to requisition a whole case last month! This is preposterous, I say-" Uldred stopped abruptly at the sound of shushing coming from the other side of the bookcases.

Silence for a moment, then panting, then a squeal. A female voice hissed, "Anders you-" a gasp, "Niall!"

"Quiet, love. I think they heard you." Anders. Of course.

Uldred nodded toward the end of the row, then led him around the corner. It was about what he'd expected; Niall on his knees with an arm up the girl's robe, Anders holding her from behind and nuzzling an ear. 

"Enchanter Uldred! And Enchanter Thekla. Is there anything I can do for you? My friends and I were just finishing up here." Anders spoke as Niall stood up, and the girl--Amara, he recognized her now--straightened her robes.

"I won't insult your intelligence: this is exactly what it looks like," Niall said.

"Oh well that's a relief! You won't insult our intelligence, only our sense of propriety, our dignity!" Uldred was never one to pass up an opportunity to be angry. "Tell me, what would you have us do with you?" _Remind them to keep it down and keep walking_ was what Karl wished he had the nerve to say, but Maker save him if he'd wanted to pick a fight with Uldred he wouldn't have been letting the man follow him around ranting about the damn fire rods.

"Is it too much to ask Karl there to join in?" Anders said, winking at him.

"Disgusting, all of you. You will report to my office first thing in the morning for discipline. In the meantime you will return to your quarters and I don't want to see you so much as looking at one another, do you understand?" Niall and Amara bowed their heads and nodded.

"Thoroughly understood. I'll be sure to keep my eyes on Enchanter Thekla's beard," Anders said, sauntering away backwards.

That was Anders. Where anyone else would bow their heads and submit, he would always stand proud. He would not be shamed, he would not be cowed. Karl couldn't help but feel a bit of awe.

"Cheeky bastard. You'd think, the one thing Templars would be good for is teaching these miscreants to defer to their betters. Oh, what to have them do in the morning. I just had Petra clean the mess those spiders made in the storeroom, so that's no good. Any ideas?"

Getting a bit of a power trip with apprentices was common among senior enchanters, finally having sanction to pick on someone weaker after a lifetime of harassment by the Templars and the Chantry. Of course turning mages against one another served both their purposes. Karl made sure to stay vigilant--if the Chantry wanted them to hate themselves he certainly wasn't going to help--but he'd seen that sort of corruption befall some of the best of them.

Uldred had never been the best of them.


	3. Chapter 3

Anders felt practically jubilant this morning. After weeks of flirting and dancing around one another he and Niall had finally managed to find themselves alone in a Chantry confessional with the newly-Harrowed Cera last night. Good old prim and proper Cera, the way she and Niall were on each other was a sight that would keep him warm at night for some good while.

Niall was the perfect partner in crime. Though always too timid and defeatist to approach girls on his own, something about the dour fellow girls seemed to take as a challenge to make him happy. Anders would come on strong, command all the attention, then Niall would reel them in with those puppy-dog eyes and dolorous voice. Who could resist putting a smile on that face? Not Anders, certainly, it was simply a shame the boy was really only interested in girls. Oh well, their shared exploits were more than satisfactory, and there were plenty of other guys to fantasize about.

Like Karl. Oh maker. He joked about the beard, but some jokes are made because at their core is a truth, and the truth was that sometimes Anders wanted nothing more out of life than to bury his fingers in that epic display of facial hair. Already infiltrated by grey, it made him look so terribly old and wise and serious, despite clearly not being all that much older. Thirty, tops, Anders reckoned. Young for a Senior Enchanter.

It wasn't really the beard on its own, though, not that it wasn't nice. It was the way it played off the rest of him, the big display of manly gravitas on his face, but it wasn't the whole story, not for anyone who really looked. His eyes held the fire of a man who was playing along but had never truly allowed himself to be domesticated, who never quite surrendered his lust for freedom. And his smile, the most subtle of things, just enough at just the right moments, like he may be a senior enchanter but he was still in on the joke.

And today would be the day they followed up on the trees from last week. Anders found himself skipping down the hall like he had bells on his toes, grinning at everyone he passed along the way-- until he spotted her.

"Amara?" She was curled tightly in a corner behind a pillar, head resting on her knees. She had a book in her hand as though she'd been reading some time earlier, or perhaps had simply intended to.

"Anders. I was just... studying," she replied, staring intently at her knees.

"You know I always find studying is better done with some assistance," Anders said. "I could go find Niall if-" She shook her head slowly. He lowered his voice, speaking softly and gently now. "Amara, love. Talk to me." He crouched down beside her and went to place a hand on her arm, but she recoiled at his touch. Her breathing was heavy and uneven. "Okay, I'll go now. Are you sure-"

"No," she said, her voice barely breaking a whisper. "Please. Don't go."

He stood next to her for a moment before asking, "Is it all right if I sit?" She nodded, digging a bit farther into the corner to make some room for him. Once he was settled she leaned into his chest and held his hand. He felt her shaking, perhaps crying? He couldn't be certain. He wondered what to do with his hands; she seemed to want physical contact, comfort. He offered one arm up awkwardly, which she took and wrapped around her waist. There, that was more comfortable. He moved his other hand to rest on her lower arm but was met with a whimper.

"Hey, sorry, sorry love. But I don't understand," Anders spoke as softly as he could.

"I…" Amara shook for a moment, sighed, then pulled up a sleeve. Only a couple inches, but it was enough to see a weeping burn taking up much of her arm, along with several cuts. _Maker…_ Amara quickly pulled her sleeve back down.

"Shh, shh. It's all right love. Who did this to you? Templars?” She shook her head. “You?" She gave the slightest nod. He tightened his hold around her waist. "Shh. It's all right, love. It's all right."

"I just can't. I can't do any more. I try to be better, I try to concentrate, but every time, I let my mind go for a moment, and I just," she sniffed, and Anders offered his sleeve for her to wipe her face on. "They're going to kill me. And that's if they even let me take the Harrowing. I, I have to be strong, but I'm not. I can't." He wished he could tell her that was absurd, that of course she was strong enough, that she'd pass her Harrowing easily, that she'd live to be having trysts in the library at a ripe old age, but he knew her fears were founded. She never had much power; in fact he was a little surprised she'd managed to burn herself so badly. Anders stroked her hair as she cried quietly for a minute. "They tell us it's a curse, but how come the Maker couldn't have cursed me just a little more?"

He wished he could hold her in his arms until everything was better. Until she didn't hurt anymore. Until every Templar and Chantry mother grew old and died, until one final Blight swelled out of the earth to steal life from every inch of Thedas and there was no one else alive to fear magic. Then, only then, he'd take her hand, lead her outside the tower to walk free in a dying world with no one left to hurt them, no one left to tell her that her life was a curse.

Instead he held her until some Templar noticed and dragged them apart. Anders put up a good show of pretending to have been interrupted in flagrante. It was the first unspoken rule amongst the apprentices: never allow them to see your weakness, and never allow them to know your heart. The Templars may wield powers of life and death, but this would be one power denied to them.

She winced as Biff grabbed her by the arm and marched her to the Chantry, not that the big brute took any notice. If only there was a single blighted thing he could do for her.

Actually, perhaps there was one thing.


	4. Chapter 4

They arrived at the three trees from last week's exercise. Each student was to take a tree, sever and reattach two branches, burn and heal another two. In the time he was working with Selene--who, Andraste forgive him, appeared to have all the healing aptitude of a poisoned mace--Anders had completely cut down and dismembered his tree, mangled branches, cut a foot or so off the trunk and torched it black. Even Niall seemed in awe of the destruction. Then Anders set about putting the tree back together, asking Karl for pointers when he wasn't too busy discussing the size, firmness and placement of his wood. It didn't take much of a mage to have a plant looking healthy again an hour later, but real healing, the proof of that could only be seen later.

The severed branches on Niall's tree had healed up perfectly well, but the burned branches were now full of drooping yellow leaves. "All right, Niall, I suppose we work on burning some more," Karl said. Selene's tree looked to have three dead and three quite sickly branches, despite her having only damaged four to begin with. "And Selene…" she looked at him sheepishly. "Might I refer you to Enchanter Gemma? Because I think you could well be her new entropy star." He meant it genuinely, and Selene's smile suggested she took it in that spirit. They then turned to survey Anders' efforts.

_Well I'll be damned._

The tree had never looked healthier; solid, healthy bark, strong branches, bright green leaves. Karl simply stared for a moment, mouth agape.

"What did I tell you? I'm a man who knows his way around wood," Anders said.

"I'll say," Karl replied before his sense caught up to his mouth. Giggles from Niall and Selene. Anders, though, just looked at him strangely. "Really, this is remarkable!" Karl watched Anders start to smile, barely with his mouth, but just shining through his cheeks and his eyes. That's what was so strange; he was letting some genuine emotion show, for perhaps the first time Karl had ever seen. For just a moment there was no bravado, no performance, just a moment of well-earned pride and pleasure at recognition. It was one of the most beautiful sights Karl had ever laid eyes on.

When it was time for their return Karl lingered several steps behind, enjoying all the smells and sounds before it was back into the tower. And the sights, he had to admit to himself. He saw Anders and Niall whisper to each other, trade slaps on the shoulder and then split ways. Niall took Selene by the arm and rushed ahead a few steps. Anders stopped and waited for Karl to catch up.

"I'm a bit ashamed to admit, I didn't think you had it in you. That was quite impressive," Karl said.

"People find I'm full of surprises. Quite _impressive_ surprises. If you'd ever care to find out."

Oh Maker. If he was ever going to say it, he should do it now.

"Anders, look, you need to know. You're incredibly charming, and handsome, and Maker help me if I don't wish I was… but no. You're an apprentice. I'm your mentor right now, and even if I wasn't your mentor in particular, it would be taking advantage. I can't do that." Karl was surprised to hear his voice cracking at the end.

For just a moment Anders seemed quite shocked. Was it surprise at being shot down? That didn't quite seem right. Or was it that he never really believed Karl reciprocated the attraction in the first place?

And the mask was back on. "Your loss. So much for that list I've been keeping of all the dirty things I'd do with your beard," Anders said.

They walked side by side in silence for a minute, then as they were about to round the corner to within sight of the outer guards Anders stopped him. _He's not trying to push this again, is he?_ Karl shot a serious glare at him, but was met with a look of, could that be humility? Vulnerability?

"I… That's actually not what I wanted to ask you about. That's not why I sent Niall and Selene ahead. I need… I need a favor. And there's no one else I can ask. Please," Anders said, his voice quiet and serious.

"I'm not helping you with any of your escape attempts, so don't ask," Karl spoke in as quiet a whisper as he could manage. The Templar escort was surely out of earshot of normal conversation, but still, this was far too dangerous a conversation to be having.

"What? No. I'd never-- you really think I'd ask any of the other mages here to take that kind of risk for my little holidays?" Anders shot back in a louder, angrier whisper.

"Then what? What could you possibly want out of me?"

"I need to learn how to heal people! Not plants. People! It's important!"

Karl didn't see that one coming. Full of surprises indeed.

They were nearly upon the guards. "We can talk about this later," Karl said.

"Later is no good. This is urgent."

Karl wasn't sure if it was curiosity, nobility, the long-repressed urge to make mischief or just the fact that he was still quite smitten with him, but somehow he found himself muttering back, "The library, where Uldred and I found you a couple weeks ago. One hour."

Anders nodded before taking a running leap onto Niall's back.


	5. Chapter 5

The moment Karl laid eyes on him Anders started walking away.

He was confused for a moment, then Anders turned back and gave him an annoyed look. Right. He followed as far behind as he could, then watched from across the library as Anders slipped between a bookcase and the stairs. Karl wandered over, trying to remember how to act inconspicuous, made sure he was unseen and wriggled through the gap.

He could see nothing inside the passage, but before he could conjure a light he felt Anders take him by the hand. Ten feet, steps down, twenty feet, a turn, a ladder, then stopped. Anders conjured a tiny orb of light. It was a small room, perhaps six feet in one direction and four in the other, barely five feet from floor to ceiling.

"Where have you taken us? Does anyone know about this place?" Karl asked.

"The Templars know you can squeeze behind the staircase in the library. They usually pretend not to because they also know that sound from that passage carries quite well into the Revered Mother's office in the Chantry. What they don't know is that I fixed the ladder and trap door to this chamber, which is much better isolated. So long as we don't get into a shouting match nobody should be able to hear us, and if anyone notices us leaving, they'll just assume we were shagging behind the stairs," Anders replied.

"You have a plan for everything."

"You think so, right? So do they. They think I'm some kind of escape artist mastermind, but the truth of it is that I just make a point to know things. Know the architecture, know the habits, know who's with who, know what they see and what they don't. Oh, I do keep a trick or two up my sleeve, but never plans. Plans are far too dangerous, you get invested in plans. Plans blind you to opportunity, and nobody ever escapes a place like this without being willing to seize opportunity."

Karl felt himself practically swooning. The dashing rogue, sharing all his secrets, spiriting him away to what had to be the most private place in the tower, his hair glowing in the gentle light of the orb. He felt like an apprentice again, young and full of passion, unbroken.

But that's not why he was here.

"Anders, why did you bring me here?"

"Because I'm trusting you not to tell."

"Okay. What are we doing here?"

"Didn't I say? You're teaching me healing. Real healing. No more trees."

"Why this, though? You're a bloody savant, Blight take me, I've never seen anyone take to healing so naturally. You'll have your Harrowing within the year, no doubt, and if you can restrain yourself from commenting on her bosom for five whole minutes I'm sure Wynne would be ready to duel every other enchanter for the chance to train you. So why the rush? Why the risk?"

"I can't wait a year. I'd rather not wait a day." Anders looked at him, pleading. "Please, Karl."

As if he could say no. "First thing: I don't know what it is that you're in such a hurry for, but animals are complicated. Lots of organs that do different things, that can be wounded in different ways. That's not something you can just feel out or pick up from getting friendly with a fade spirit. That takes study, years of serious study." Anders nodded in response. "And you know that already. So you want me to teach you how to heal superficial damage. Flesh wounds."

"Like this," Anders said. He pulled up his sleeve and filled his hand full of fire, then brought the fire to his arm. Karl started to yelp, but caught himself. Anders pressed the flame harder and harder into his arm, filling the tiny room with the stench of burning flesh and hair.

"Anders, please, stop!" Karl hissed desperately, trying to pull his hand away.

"Like this," Anders repeated, extinguishing the fire. His face betrayed no pain, only cocksure determination. "Now what do I do?"

That stubborn, obstinate, bull-headed--whatever his reason--oh, Maker. Karl took a deep breath, and began to talk him through it. It really wasn't so unlike trees, he went on, and Anders' first attempt on his burn took it from blistering and bleeding to red and tender.

"Much better! Now one more thing, what some people find to be the trickiest, is the patient's will. Most people want to get better, but sometimes for whatever reason their own beings will fight the spirit, will sabotage it. If your magic isn't working right, or isn't working as well as it should, sometimes the only thing left to try is bedside manner. Be kind, compassionate. Loving, if you can." Karl ever so gently put his hands on either side of Anders' wound and bade it to mend itself. "Like this."

Anders prodded at where his wound had been, gently at first, then with some force. "Well look at you, and the healing touch," he said, smiling, now tracing the boundary of where the blond hairs had been singed off. "All right, again." He fired up his other hand, and made to burn the opposite arm.

Karl was prepared this time and caught Anders' hand with his own. He felt heat down his wrist and arm, but his hand felt nothing but the pressure of another hand.

"Karl!" Anders stopped the fire. "What in Andraste's-- Karl! Why?"

Then the pain hit.

Karl felt his whole body tense and contract, hunched over the agony pouring out of his hand. He bit hard on his lip to keep from crying out. "No, no, Karl!" he heard Anders say. His eyes filled with tears.

Then a soft white light surrounded his hand. Pain receded. Anders was healing him. Fixing him. Remarkably well. He watched the skin on the palm of his hand patch itself, steady itself, finally turn smooth and slightly pink.

Anders lowered his no-longer-glowing hands. "Well?" Anders asked hesitantly.

Karl slowly bent his fingers, then made a fist. The pain was all gone. "Like it never happened," he said after wiping off the tears.

"I'm so sorry. I am so, so sorry."

"Sorry enough to tell me what this all about?"

Anders stared back at him with his still earnest amber eyes.

"More than sorry enough, but it's not my secret to divulge." Anders hesitated for a long moment, apparently wrestling with some decision. From the look on his face Karl couldn't guess if he wanted to tell him anyway, kiss him anyway, or both. Maker, he wished both.

No. He should keep his secret, whatever it is. Might be the first time in the history of the Circle anyone bothered. And he should certainly keep his lips to himself.

Anders seemed to have reached the same conclusion. He sat up straighter, and with a bit of his usual tone announced it was time they got going.

Upon reaching the final bit of passage Karl thought he saw some movement on the other side of the bookcase. Anders stopped. He crept around and peered through a crack in the wood, waited, waited. "I don't see anyone," Anders whispered eventually. "Let me just--"

"Who's there? Show yourself!" Blighted Templars. Both of them froze, on the desperate hope that something, anything would distract the guard.

"Ser Don, can I assist you with something?" That was Uldred. Oh this kept getting worse.

"Might I make use of your staff to light behind this bookcase?" What? No. Please. No.

"Oh here, it's no trouble at--" Uldred was probably still talking, and for that matter Karl was probably still panicking, but none of that mattered now. Anders threw himself against him, hands running up and down his body, soft lips meeting his own, warm tongue, a soft moan-- was that him or Anders? Not that it mattered.

"Oh, sorry. I hope we weren't bothering anyone. I just brought Enchanter Thekla back here for some, mmm, private instruction he offered me. Apparently I'm quite talented." Anders, Maker. He'd never known anyone so skilled at making the truth sound like a lie.

"Anders! With me. Now." Uldred had a special talent for cackling orders at anyone he could lord power over.

"Right away, Enchanter Uldred!" Anders winked conspicuously at both Karl and Ser Don before following Uldred up the stairs.


	6. Chapter 6

"You know what you are, boy?" Uldred asked.

"Charming. Or so I'm told, constantly," Anders replied.

"I was going to say 'trouble.'"

"But then you remembered I'm also a smartass." Anders smiled broadly. He was really quite pleased with himself; there was something about Uldred that often seemed to knock him off his game. Like ice suddenly pressing against his back, filling him with the urge to flinch and spin around. Today he was unstoppable, though, volleyed by the success at every turn, and perhaps more than a little bit by the feeling of Karl's beard against his face. He'd smile and sass at Uldred until bed checks if he had to, and then he'd find Amara. It wasn't what usually came to mind when he thought of pleasuring a woman, certainly, but it was all he could think about. That and Karl. Oh Maker that man's hands…

Uldred had been going on about trouble, and Templars, trouble, depravity, always finding Anders with his tongue in someone's mouth… _mmm, Karl._ Making a mockery of order, his upcoming Harrowing… _Amara is going to be so happy!_ He tried to imagine the look on her face, when he healed the wounds on her arms. When he made the pain stop. She'd look at him not just with joy, but with knowing. Know the things he can never say.

"You look awfully happy at this discussion of your untimely death," Uldred said.

"What's that? Sorry, I must have been thinking of Enchanter Thekla's beard again." Something in Uldred's demeanor changed at that. He was like a cat who finally decided he was done playing with his food.

Uldred spoke quietly now, slowly walking towards Anders with a book in one hand. "For the next two hours you will sit at that desk and copy the text of this manuscript. Tomorrow you will return for two hours and continue. You will do this every day until the entire manuscript has been copied." Uldred was now barely a foot away.

"Copy a manuscript for you, yes, right away! Can I enchant anything for you while I'm at it?" The part of his brain still capable of feeling fear immediately regretted that last sass. Rumor had it that Uldred was the "concerned Senior Enchanter" who served as instigator for the last three invocations of the Rite of Tranquility.

Uldred took another step in closer forcing Anders to step back, pressing himself against the door now. "That depends on how much more trouble you intend to get into," Uldred said, taking a lock of Anders' hair between his fingers.

Anders felt his chest tighten, his legs weaken. Was he panicking? No, of course not. He was Anders, and he didn't panic. Definitely not. Anders darted quickly to the side and stepped backwards. "Trouble. No trouble at all. Sit at the desk, copy the manuscript. The manuscript?" Anders reached towards Uldred, standing as far back as he could while still being just close enough to reach.

Uldred handed it to him with a disgusted grunt, then indicated that he was heading to the library, and that if he came back in one hour and fifty nine minutes Anders had better well still be dutifully copying.

Anders felt sick, his hands trembling as he got to work. Some day. He eyed the document. How many days would this take, at two hours a day? Five? Ten? Twenty? Just focus. You do this, you get to leave. Go heal Amara. Perhaps she'll be feeling so good after that she'd be craving some even better feelings. Perhaps not, but stranger things have happened.

Like Karl. Anders didn't understand. He was nothing if not accustomed to rejection, and Karl, that was definitely setting his sights pretty high. He never expected to get any reciprocation, really. But to hear he would? He wants to? But he won't? It didn't make any sense. And kissing him! It was necessity, certainly, and Karl understood. You can't go around the tower doing suspicious things like being in dark corners and not snogging without getting the full wrath of the Templars upon you. But Karl had said no. But he kissed back, so enthusiastically! He didn't need that, just to play along. He didn't need to feel so wonderful.

Anders took stock of the letters he'd copied, then the manuscript, then the clock. This was going to be a long two hours.


	7. Chapter 7

"Amara," Anders whispered. He'd hoped to steal away with her before lights out, but he certainly wasn't going to make her wait until morning.

He was unsurprised to find her still awake. "What do you want?" He couldn't tell if she was annoyed but trying to sound happy to see him or the other way around.

"Come on. I have something for you."

She crept out of her bed, following with all the enthusiasm of someone too exhausted to argue. Anders led them into a wardrobe; it would be tight, he knew, but he did want to risk anyone seeing the glow of him casting. He'd spent some time wondering how he was going to convince her to cooperate, assuming that she would be uninterested in all of the usual reasons he had for getting her out of her clothes and into a wardrobe. She made no argument, though, no challenge to him, had no further questions for him, just quiet compliance.

He wasn't sure if he should feel flattered that she trusted him so, or horrified at how her will seemed broken.

"All right, just a little bit of light so we can see," Anders said, summoning a barely glowing orb. "There, not too bad on your eyes?" She shook her head.

She tried to slink away from him as he studied her arm. It was far worse than he'd realized, the burn running all the way up her forearm and nearly to her shoulder, wrapping around her elbow, branching a couple places. On top of--Or was it underneath?--the burn were three massive cuts, deep enough he was amazed she could keep the blood loss hidden. Did she mean to make them so deep? She wouldn't be the first apprentice he knew to resort to this sort of release. But so deep… he felt lead in his stomach at his next thought: Did she mean to make them deeper?

"I'm sorry," she said. "I never wanted you or Niall to see that. It seemed too cruel to do that too you."

"Nonsense, beautiful. Now, I said I've got something for you. Close your eyes." Closing her eyes was a last-minute impulse, but it seemed like good showmanship. She complied, and he went to work.

It was a lot more area, although nowhere quite as severe as Karl's hand. He wasn't watching her face, but he heard Amara moan softly a couple times.

"Now open your eyes," he said, a bit of excitement creeping into his voice.

"It's…" she ran her fingers along the absent wound, "You healed it."

"Oh, that? Just a little something I picked up. Nothing special." The burn tissue did look good as new, but the cuts left very visible scars. Something to work on.

"You- how could you- you!" Amara punched him in the chest a couple times. "Why would you?"

Anger? Anders hadn't been prepared for that. "But I didn't want you to hurt. I just wanted to see you happy again. I wanted to make you better."

"Well you can't!"

"But your arms-"

"Yes! Yes! You made the burns go away. Because of course you can! You're Anders! I'd ask where you learned that trick, but you'd probably just tell me how you sweet-talked the secrets of spirit healing out of some friendly demon, right between breakfast and teaching yourself chain lightning!"

"But-" Anders groped for words, but his reality was spinning around him too quickly to find any.

Amara sighed. "Andraste's saggy left tit, Anders, you look like somebody just fed you a sack full of kittens. I'm going back to bed before the entire tower hears us."

In his bed Anders tried to understand what had happened. She was angry. That's not so bad, he supposed. Angry was clearly a step up from crippled-by-despair. Why was she angry at him, though, when he'd helped?

_Because you can't help her. Not with her real problems._

No. Better not to think about that.

There was that cold feeling inside again, that pain he got when Amara lashed out at him. The overwhelming sensation that he and everything else in his life was completely wrong.

Better thoughts to get him to sleep. He thought about Karl. Kissing Karl. Oh, Maker. It was only a cover, but Karl, surely he wanted more. Anders would be only too happy to oblige.


	8. Chapter 8

Anders was surprised at how reluctant he found himself to report to Uldred's office. Usually he had little trouble just sucking it up and keeping his mind on more pleasant things. Today, though, he kept noticing strange wrongnesses in his body: nausea, irregular breathing, tension in muscles he didn't know he had.

Uldred sat him down copying right where he’d left off. Probably closer to a month at this rate, Anders reckoned, as he was slowed by the manuscript being in Tevene. He wondered if it was chosen deliberately as one more little insult, a twist of the knife to remind him that when he arrived most other apprentices his age were already well on their way to fluency in Orlesian or Tevene, but he was struggling with the Trade tongue and all but completely illiterate, even in Ander. Well the joke was on him; all the senior enchanters seemed far more scandalized than Anders had ever felt. Irving’s reaction was the best. _Just what were they teaching you in Hossberg, young man?_ Anders smiled for a moment at the memory; the Circle in the Anderfels had been so ridiculously easy to escape, it was like the Chantry wasn’t even trying. In those few months he’d spent more time on the lam or being dragged back in irons than he managed to total in the Ander Circle itself.

Uldred hadn’t left this time. In fact, Anders could swear he was watching him, although he wasn’t about to look up to confirm that. Just keep focus, keep writing…

“What does that say?” Anders nearly leapt straight out of his chair. Uldred was standing behind him, pointing at a word in the last sentence.

“Calfus?” Anders offered, sounding out the letters.

“Calsus! Calsus! Does this look like a treatise on the breeding of livestock?”

“I suppose I wouldn’t know, Senior Enchanter,” Anders said, trying very hard to keep his voice steady.

“Do you really think it’s plausible that is a topic that would concern me?”

“It takes all kinds. I’m not here to judge your hobbies.” Oh Maker why hadn’t he just shaken his head and gone back to writing?

“Perhaps I have made a mistake assigning you this particular task. Just because simple transcription is beyond your skill-set does not mean you can be of absolutely no use to me.” Anders shuddered as Uldred’s words felt like a snake slithering down his back.

No, not words. That was the man’s hand running down his back.

Anders jerked and spun around. “I— no. No, thank you, I’ll just get back to copying here. No more mistakes.”

“I think we both know that’s not a realistic expectation.” Uldred followed, closing in on him again. “Or do I have to butter you up, tell you how very special and talented you are? Pet you on the head,” Uldred reached out and buried the tips of his fingers in Anders’ hair, “and tell you what a good boy you are, how proud you’ve made me? Is that what Karl does?”

Anders’ heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his teeth. Too much terror, he couldn’t think to do anything but tell the truth. “It’s not like that, he—“

“He what? How does he get you to bend over and take it, and keep begging for more? Why don’t you show me?”

“Stop, please.” Anders could barely hear his own voice.

“The Tower slut wants me to stop! You’ll give it up to Karl, Niall, any pretty thing that bats her eyelashes at you, and yet you presume to tell me no. What if I should insist?”

Anders started to raise a hand to defend himself. Uldred caught him by the wrist and laughed.

"Oh, really? How about a thought experiment. Let us imagine for a moment that you managed to hold your own against me for long enough for the Templars to rush in here. Imagine you're a Templar, what do you see? A respected Senior Enchanter in a row with Anders the contrary apprentice, Anders the consummate trouble-maker. Anders, who never let pass an opportunity to back-talk. Anders, the boy who they were always impressed managed to find time for running away, since he usually seemed far too busy sticking his prick in anyone who would hold still.” Uldred slid the hand that had been on his hair down, wrapping his fingers around Anders’ neck. "So tell me, who's side do you take, when you come upon this altercation? Which one gets to stay in his office, and which one gets hauled to a cell where a frustrated batch of recruits can bugger him until he cries for his daddy? What do you think? Would you like to put this experiment to the test now?"

Grey splotches crowded out his peripheral vision; his hands, legs, face all felt nothing but pinpricks from the inside. For all the times the Templars had hunted and bound him, Anders had never felt so helpless and afraid. The worst part is he knew Uldred was right. He’d painted quite the picture with the Templars, but Anders doubted it would ever make it that far should he try to resist. He couldn’t fight, couldn’t run, pressed against a desk now, papers crumpling under his hands-- the paper.

Back against the wall, when all else failed him Anders always had one move left: shoot fire out his fingers.

The manuscript ignited easily. Uldred was enraged, cursing at him and madly scrambling to halt the conflagration. It had been instinct more than cunning strategy--an instinct that up to now had caused far more trouble than it had ever saved him--but this time it turned out to have been a clever move. All he had to do was keep Uldred off-balance for a few more moments, long enough to warrant outside help.

"Fire! There's really a great deal of fire! Could we get some assistance, please! Anyone!" The part of his brain responsible for putting words in the mouth of cheerful, normal Anders somehow managed to function. The rest of him felt about to pass out.

Uldred muttered some more curses at him before the door flew open. For once in his life Anders was relieved to see Templars.


	9. Chapter 9

Karl heard the sounds of a commotion outside his office, a commotion he would really prefer to not be dealing with right now. He sighed and got up to investigate. It was almost certainly nothing, unless he decided to ignore it at which point it would certainly become a horde of ravenous abominations here to ruin his day.

Indeed a crowd had gathered, Templars and mages arguing with one another and shouting orders. Nobody getting murdered, that was a good sign. He started to retreat back into his office but found himself arrested by curiosity; was that Uldred's office they were gathering around? That might be worth seeing.

He had closed about half the distance when he distinctly heard Anders' voice. _Oh Maker, this could be bad._ Defiant as he was, Anders was usually quite good about conceding when a battle was lost and would redirect his efforts to being graceful in his defeat. Most everyone who had been in the tower more than three days understood this system. But if there was going to be anyone who would keep pushing, keep squeezing, and deny Anders the space to surrender with his head held high, Uldred would be the one. Cooperation was never enough, he wanted to see submission, and with Anders so determined to never submit...

True desperation was something Karl had never seen out of Anders. The thought of it frightened him.

The smell of burning hit him as he reached the crowd. Inside Uldred's office he quickly felt relief, as the fire was out now and he and Anders and all the helpful responders were unharmed. The same could not be said of the property inside Uldred's office; bits of burnt paper were everywhere, char marks on wood. Anders was busy smothering a large book while Uldred sifted through scorched papers.

"Bloody hell, what happened in here?"

"This vile wretch set my office on fire," Uldred said, his voice disconcertingly calm.

"Whoops," Anders said flatly. Karl couldn’t decide which of them felt more wrong.

Reluctance to play disciplinarian was just one more reason Karl had avoided taking on any dedicated apprentices, and this reluctance was no secret. Still, he could be stern when he needed to be, and it was important no one challenge him on this.

"Anders. In my office. Now." Anders moved to leave without comment, then hesitated when he noticed Karl wasn't following. "Was some part of that unclear?" Further wordless compliance.

Karl picked up where Anders had left off checking for anything still smoldering. "Maker. What could have come over that boy?"

"Whatever did, he will live to regret it," Uldred said, glaring at Karl with a face that looked ready to set a few more fires.


	10. Chapter 10

Upon returning to his office Anders was sitting in wait. "First of all I want to say it really wasn't-"

"Just stop. Stop right now. You play all the games you like with the Templars, that's not my problem. But you set a senior enchanter's office on fire! Do you have any idea what you've done, what line you have crossed?" Karl heard his own voice echoing down the hall. He meant to put on a show, but was surprised at how easily he found genuine anger to fuel him; anger at Anders for being in this mess, anger at Uldred for pushing him to it, anger at the Templars and the Circle simply for existing.

"I-"

Karl cut him off. "No more bullshit, Anders! I will have the truth from you now!" And with that Karl slammed the door behind him. There. Doors in the Tower were practically a running joke, in that you only close one if you want to be sure the Templars quickly come investigate what’s going on behind it. Discipline was the only consistent exception Karl had ever observed; come to think of it, he suspected Gregoir had ordered his men to refrain from interference as a matter of course. Probably makes their jobs easier to have mages policing their own.

Anders was practically cowering now. _Dear Maker._ Karl took a deep breath to calm himself down.

"Anders," Karl spoke softly now. "I know Uldred can be an ass, but whatever possessed you to do that?"

"You know me. Can't help but find trouble." His mouth made a smile with that, but his tone was flat, and the rest of his face looked on the verge of tears.

Karl pulled a chair next to him and sat down. "Look, all of that earlier was for them," Karl nodded slightly towards his now-closed door, "but I am serious about needing to know what happened in there, because there is clearly something very, very wrong. Please, you’ve trusted me before, you can trust me now. Tell me what happened, tell me why.”

"I vandalized his office. Because that's what I do."

"So why isn't my office on fire right now?"

"Out of mana?"

“You may be a good actor, but you’re a terrible liar.” Anders looked down and away from him. Time for a stab in the dark. “Is this about why you wanted to learn healing?”

“No. That’s something else.” Finally a straight answer, if not a terribly helpful one.

“I know Uldred, and I know he likes to push and he doesn’t know when to quit. Maker help me, maybe that’s all it was, but surely you have to know, I meant it when I said you crossed a line.”

“So what now, they’ll make me tranquil?” Anders was still looking away, calm and vacant.

No. Karl felt something else inside, not normal anger, something more certain, something more righteous.

“Oh no. No, no, no. I see what’s happening now, and you don’t get to do this. Look at me.” Nothing. “Look at me.” Now Anders complied. “How long have you been here? Four years? No, not even that. And you’ve escaped the tower three times. This tower, three times, and without ever even making a serious attempt on your phylactery. You go knowing you’ll be caught and brought back, but you go anyway, and always come back with your head held high. And every time you run, every time you come back you remind each and every one of us that we don’t have to agreeably submit, to agree to be meek and oppressed. We don’t have to be domesticated. You remind the Templars that they aren’t heroes doing the Maker’s work, they’re jailors, they’re just oppressing people too caught up in the Chantry’s sermons of our curse to think to fight back. You are the counter-argument, a shining message to everyone in the tower that magic is no curse, it’s a beautiful gift, possessed by men who need not be broken, who need not give up dreaming of freedom. We need you. I need you. Don’t do this to me. Don’t you dare give up. Don’t you fucking dare!”

Anders was still looking at him, visibly shaking. Terrified. Pushed too hard.

Karl reached a hand out to rest on his shoulder. “Maker, I—“ His hand barely brushed Anders’ sleeve, but it was enough. Anders wrapped his arms around him, and Karl pulled him close, cradling his head against his chest. He might have been crying. Karl supposed it didn’t matter.

Maybe half a minute passed, maybe half an hour. The whimpers and shaking had subsided, and Anders let out a strange giggle. “He thought that you and I, that we…” Anders trailed off and then laughed again. “I tried to tell him, but he didn’t listen. Didn’t care. He just wanted…” this time instead of trailing off into laughter Anders started quivering again.

Uldred. Oh surely he didn’t. “Wanted what, Anders?” No answer. “What did he want? Did he ask something inappropriate of you?” He felt Anders tense against him, and felt his own teeth grinding against each other. “Look at me,” Karl said, pulling back. “Did Uldred try anything with you?” Anders barely nodded. “Did he pressure you? Did he threaten you?” Again, a slight nod. “Did he touch you?”

Anders pressed his lips together for a moment, before answering. “Not as such,” Anders said, touching his own neck, absently running fingers along one side of it.

“Anders, this is important. Did he touch so much as one hair on your head?”

Anders nodded. Karl felt his anger shoot right past rage and into this perfectly serene, icy fury. 

“Thank you for trusting me with this. I know it couldn’t have been easy.” Karl squeezed his hand and arose. “Please excuse me for a moment. This shouldn’t take long.” Karl took his staff and started down the hall. He and Uldred were going to have a chat.


	11. Chapter 11

Uldred’s door was all the way open, a spell circulating air through to help with the burnt smell.

Karl took one step inside the doorway and pounded the floor with the bottom of his staff. His right hand crackled with electricity, tiny arcs dancing between his fingers.

Uldred looked up from his desk. “Karl. Do come in.”

Karl glared back. “Do I close the door, or shall we do this with an audience?”

“My. Someone has a flair for the dramatic today. One might think some miserable little barn rat set _your_ office on fire.”

Karl took a step forward and pounded the floor again. “Don’t you even give me that. I know what happened here.”

Uldred stood from his chair. “Oh, do you now? Then I hardly understand what's got you in such a tizzy. Surely you’re already aware that your little plaything has been making the rounds.” Uldred smirked, and looked pointedly just over Karl’s shoulder. “Hasn’t he? So you’ve come to threaten me?”

Karl took two more steps forward, now with nothing but Uldred’s desk separating the two of them. He felt the electric arcs flowing up and down his body, just itching to fire. He smiled the smile of one man about to flay another alive. “To threaten you? Oh, no, you misunderstand. This is no threat. This is a warning, a favor I’m doing for you, just once, mage to mage.”

No more smiling, Karl spoke the next words with flat, matter-of-fact certainty. “You may bully your way around everyone here, but so help me Uldred if you ever again lay one finger on him there will be apprentices a generation from now still cleaning charred bits of your insides out from between the bookshelves. You and any Templars who try to stop me.”

A smirk and a shrug out of Uldred. “Fine. Have your filthy little slut. Everyone else has. What do I care?”

Karl leaned across the desk. “One. Finger.” He pointed at Uldred, moving his finger in close enough for one arc to jump to Uldred’s chest. “Is that clear?”

Uldred looked down at his finger, then back up at Karl’s eyes. There was the hate he was looking for. “Quite,” Uldred replied.

“Good.” Karl turned around to see he had, in fact, gathered an audience. A particularly green Templar was nervously blocking the door with his sword drawn. “Cheer up, kiddo. No righteous murder today,” Karl said as he brushed the soldier aside.

Karl glimpsed some dark blond hair darting through the crowd towards his office. Of course Anders had followed him; that was probably who Uldred was directing half his comments at. Well. Hopefully this wouldn’t be awkward.


	12. Chapter 12

It had only belatedly occurred to Anders that Karl probably had intended for him to wait in his office. He dashed back, then tried to look settled, collected. Outside he heard Karl’s voice.

“Oh, nothing to concern yourself with, Ser. Senior Enchanter Uldred and I were just having a discussion about ethics. A _friendly_ discussion.”

Anders stifled a laugh at that. He had never in his life seen a man look so calm and yet so angry at the same time. If he’d had any remaining capacity to feel fear he was sure Karl would have terrified him, but it seemed he was all out for the day. All he had left was light-headedness, and something that felt almost like giddiness. Almost, but not quite; it wasn’t the light-hearted glee he felt upon escaping the Circle, when he looked around and could see no Templars upon him. It was something every bit as positive, but deeper, like he was somehow tumbling through the sky on wings while wrapped in a soft blanket and sipping tea.

Tears were trickling down his cheeks again when Karl arrived. So much for looking collected. Karl had a large damp spot on his chest from were Anders had last been crying.

Karl made to close the door again, making conversation with some Templar out of sight. “Do you mind? I promise, if we start summoning demons or doing blood magic you will be the first to know.” He shook his head, shut the door behind him and rested his staff in the corner. From a corner behind his desk he retrieved a bottle before sitting. With a big sigh he pried the cork out of the bottle. “Drink?” he offered the open bottle to Anders.

Karl kept alcohol stashed away, what would the Templars think? Anders couldn’t help but laugh. “Sure,” he said. He was expecting wine, but found instead a mouth full of rich, malty, bitter stout. He felt himself make a face.

“Oh, sorry. I hope it’s all right,” Karl said before taking a large swig himself.

“It tastes…like life.”

Karl laughed, took another drink and passed the bottle back. “Life. I suppose it does. Maker.” Anders took another swig, this time making less of a face, and returned the bottle.

"You know, you're bloody intimidating when you take a mind to be. Remind me never to cross you."

“I am so sorry, Anders.”

“Sorry for what?”

“For everything I said to you. For everything Uldred did to you.” Karl took another drink. “For the Templars, for the Tower, for the Chantry, for every single horror you’re going to face just for the crime of having been born a mage. I’m sorry for embarrassing you like that, making you the center of that fuss, letting Uldred insult you like that. And I’m sorry you had to see me like that.”

All over again Anders felt tears coming. He laughed. “You’re sorry? Karl, no.” He wiped his eyes with his sleeve, then took Karl’s hand. “It’s like you don’t even know. You— no one has ever done that for me. You went out of your way, you stood up for me, to someone far more powerful. You didn't have to, but you risked yourself just to protect me.” More tears, but this time Karl offered his sleeve to blot with. “My own parents, when the Templars came for me— my mother cried, but she never tried to stop them, and my father…” He’d been the one to find the pile of hay he hid in, to pull Anders out by his hair. No, he didn’t want to talk about that anymore. He wanted to continue feeling entirely too good. “No one in my life has ever shown me so much kindness as you, just now. I never dared to hope anyone would.”

Now it was Karl’s turn to juggle looking happy-but-sad, eyes squinting as he smiled. Maker he was beautiful.

“You really ought to tie your hair back,” Karl said. With his free hand he took a lock that had been singed at the ends, and Anders discovered it was possible for him to feel even more wonderful than he had a second before. “All this playing with fire—“

Anders kissed him.

For just half a moment he felt all the bliss the world had to offer, that half a moment before Karl pushed him away.

“Andraste’s flaming knickers, Anders, have you paid attention to anything that just happened? You know I can’t do this. You know why I can’t do this.”

“No, I don’t. You want to, don’t you?”

“That’s not the point. Uldred threatens you with Maker knows what, and you still can’t understand why I won’t take advantage of you?”

“But I didn’t want Uldred. I want you. Why isn’t that enough?”

“Because so long as I hold any power over you, I can use that. Even if you want me now, what if you change your mind? What if you feel pressured, worry that I won’t take no for an answer any better than Uldred did? I can’t make you feel that way.”

“But you don’t make me feel that way. You just make me feel loved.” Also confused, but mostly loved.

Karl shook his head. Why did he have to be so sad, be in so much pain? Why wouldn’t he just accept what Anders so very badly wanted to give?

“You should go,” Karl said, standing. Anders approached the door, then hesitated for a moment. Perhaps... “Go on. Out.” Anders wiped his eyes one more time on his sleeve and left.


	13. Chapter 13

“Anders? Can I borrow you for a moment?” Amara asked.

Almost any other time he would have been only too thrilled to be taken aside by Amara, to find some deserted corner to share. Today, though, he wasn’t sure he could take it, any of it. He was too exhausted for pleasure or pain, having already felt far too much of both for one day. He would just have to tell her not now…but that would involve looking into those big brown eyes and telling her no. Which is how he found himself led to a nook between two statues.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry for the way I snapped at you last night,” Amara said. “I know what you were trying to do. Just because I was in a bad place— that’s still probably the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me. And I about took your head off for your trouble.”

She…she understood. And she was happy. Against all odds Anders felt he might cry one more time today.

He kissed her instead.

She kissed back.

For several moments he felt all the bliss the world had to offer.

“Just so you know, this day has been completely, utterly insane,” Anders said once they finally pulled back.

“Do share. I’d been wondering what happened to your hair,” she said, fondling some singed ends. “Well, in a minute,” she said before kissing him some more.

“Mmmph behind you,” he said, pulling away from the kiss. Templars. They’d always be along to ruin his fun eventually. “Well, darling, shall we be off to the Chantry then?”

“How will the Maker ever bear to gaze upon us if we fall behind on our daily prostrations before Him, begging His forgiveness for the crimes of some dead Tevinters?” Amara flashed her most wonderful mischievous smile before they started walking away. “Oh! Speaking of dead Tevinters, you remember last week, talking about the destruction of Arlathan? And Finn was saying he thought it might have been sunk into the ocean?” Anders wanted to dance and scream and shout. He held her hand as they walked, fingers intertwined through hers with no care for who might see.

“I found the book he thought he got that from and it’s complete bollocks,” she continued. “The word used is generally translated as ‘swallowed’ but only within the context of swallowed into the earth. But then I could swear I remembered seeing that used once to describe something being drawn into the Fade, swallowed by dream. Could you imagine, if that’s what was meant? All of Arlathan hiding in the Fade somewhere, perhaps still a city, just full of spirits now? I have to find that book again.”

Okay, he did care who saw them. Anders smiled extra broad as they approached Uldred in the hall, then planted a kiss on Amara’s cheek. “Anders! Stop that, people will talk.”

“About why you put up with my nonsense?”

Standing on her tiptoes she was only just tall enough to return the kiss. “Only because some joker thought all the books about the Elven genocide belong up on the high shelves.”

“Lucky me,” he said with a satisfied grin and one last glance toward Uldred.


	14. Chapter 14

“You know last night I snuck out to see Cera again? Uldred caught me in the hall but said nothing! Just scowled and kept walking. Really I think you might have broke him,” Niall said as they walked together.

They came upon half-empty crates with only one guard. One guard who was having a very animated conversation with Ser Mika just of view of this week’s soon-to-be outgoing shipment of enchanted goods.

This was going to be far too easy. Anders felt almost insulted.

“And speaking of Cera, Maker that woman… Anders?” Niall stopped.

Anders looked at Niall, looked at the crates, wiggled his eyebrows and looked back at Niall with a grin.

Niall scrunched his eyebrows while tilting his head down and to the side.

Anders looked again at the crates and grinned.

Niall repeated his previous expression, but more so.

Anders raised his eyebrows and grinned at Niall, then gave a tilted nod toward the crates. _There’s room for two…_

Niall, wide-eyed, shook his head frantically.

Anders shrugged, smiled once more, then gave Niall a little wave.

_Wait…_ Owain was heading towards them. He might not have time without a distraction.

Anders locked eyes with Niall again, then looked at Owain.

Niall followed his gaze.

Anders gave the most eager, ingratiating smile he could manage.

Niall sighed, rolled his eyes, nodded and went to intercept Owain.

Anders caught Niall’s eyes one more time before he shut himself in the crate and blew him a kiss.

Niall rolled his eyes again, smiled, then returned the tiniest little wave.

_Until we meet again, my friends._


	15. Chapter 15

It was an immutable fact of his life: freedom never lasted for long.

“Finn! How’s indoor life treating you?"

"Better than Rylock is treating you there.”

"Can't keep her hands off me, now can she?" Rylock gave his arm a swift jerk.

Always the same old song and dance. The Templars would catch up to him, they always did, and he'd come along quietly. Well, not _quietly_ but without physical resistance. Once they got him back to the tower they'd always make a big show of marching him up to the First Enchanter's office in manacles with his armed escort. At first he suspected the goal was to shame him into submission—particularly that one time when he was still wearing nothing but the smallclothes he'd worn on his swim across Lake Calenhad—but now was surely one part habit, and one part vain hope that seeing him back would convince other apprentices of the futility of escape.

They never understood.

"Petra! My darling. If I'd known I'd seen your face so soon upon my return, why I wouldn't have waited so long. And Selene! Still making everything in your path wither and die? That's my girl!" There was something about Selene that seemed just a little off, like she wanted to say something. No matter. Keep smiling.

It sounded like a bit of a commotion up the first staircase. Ought to be fun. He thought he heard Niall's voice, but couldn't quite make out the words, just that he sounded quite upset. Surely he hadn’t gotten in trouble for Anders’ escape? That wouldn’t make any sense. He supposed he’d learn soon enough, as Rylock led him around the corner.

He found himself face to face with Amara. A fresh brand on her forehead. Dead eyes.

Tranquil. _Tranquil._ They made her tranquil.

The Templars had never bothered with much restraint on him; he knew when the game was up, and that so long as nobody got hurt he would live to escape another day. Looking back he was still surprised at exactly how quickly he melted the cuffs from his wrists. Fire surrounded him now, shooting out of his hands, surrounding him, breathing in and out.

He heard himself shouting. Felt himself burning. His friends were running away. Not what was left of Amara. Now lightning, crackling all around him, filling the room. He would leave nothing but rubble where this damned tower once stood.

Wisps of void circled his throat. Silence. Somehow he was still shooting lightning out his hands. The Templars would have to try harder.

Then what felt like a gentle puff of air in his lungs robbed him of all motor control. He felt heavy, his limbs collapsed out from underneath him, his life snuffing out— _This must be what it feels like to die._ His head hit the stone floor.

In the distance he heard voices. Somewhere beyond the darkness.


	16. Chapter 16

Anders said nothing when Karl entered his cell.

"I'm sorry I couldn't come sooner." This was Anders' third day in solitary, and the first shift to belong to a guard who owed Karl a sufficiently large favor. "You didn't hurt anyone. At least, nothing that couldn't be healed." He paused, but Anders did not take the opportunity to speak. "I hope your head is alright. You hit it quite hard when you went down. I did what I could while you were still out, but I could take another look at it." Mana clash. That was one of their own. He understood why, but part of him was glad he'd arrived too late on the scene to know who. "Would you mind if I sit?" Anders wordlessly shifted a few inches to the side, making space for Karl to sit beside him on the floor.

"I talked to Irving. I expect he'll pay you a visit after a couple more days. Provided you apologize and refrain from any further threats to burn down the tower and everyone in it you should be free," the word tasted bitter in his mouth, "to return to your normal routine."

Anders remained silent. This wasn't going to get any easier.

"Two days after you left the question was called, of Amara's Harrowing. Her last two mentors attested that her magical skills were weak but that she, understandably, would not entertain the idea of being made tranquil. And that recently she had seemed quite determined and had shown unexpected progress. It should have been settled quickly then, that her Harrowing would wait until next year, but then Uldred… Uldred claimed she had attempted to use blood magic." No reaction from Anders, at least none Karl could see.

Karl continued, "He spun this story, about how we all knew she was really a good girl, but the fear was getting to her so she went looking for an edge. So Irving and Gregoir called for an investigation."

"And they found scars on her arms. The cuts I couldn’t heal all the way. Now you know.” Anders was still staring at the wall.

"Uldred questioned her, interrogated her, hounded her. Broke her. Anders," Karl felt his voice wavering. "She confessed."

Karl wanted to explain further. The agony in her voice as she talked about the pressure, cutting. Then that one moment where she tried, where she hoped she might clumsily will some power out of the blood running down her skin. No deals, no demons, barely an idle wish; for all Uldred sought to plant words in her mouth, it didn't seem she had even succeeded in any blood magic. It should have only been a secret moment of weakness, but instead there she was, her failure laid bare before the Senior Enchanters Council and Templar command.

His motive for wanting to share was not noble. Anders would feel no better for knowing.

"They—“ Uldred had sung sweet reassurances at her, telling her that she could rest easy, it was all over now, there would be nothing to fear. "They were on her before she even realized what was happening. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I couldn't stop it. There was nothing more I could do."

Silence. A long silence.

"I think I understand now," Anders said eventually.

Karl couldn't quite convince himself to ask what, exactly, only to wait for Anders to continue. "If it had been me, would you have stopped it?" For the first time since he entered the cell Anders looked him in the eyes. Like a dagger into his heart. "You threatened Uldred, as I recall, with death and dismemberment, simply for touching me. Not for cutting out my soul, simply for touching me."

"It wouldn't have been you. It couldn't have been you," Karl said.

"Right, because you and Irving and Wynne and all the others have decided that I'm too talented, that I have too much potential. Too important to waste making tranquil. That's not what I asked." Anders' voice was slowly increasing in volume, but he spoke slowly, deliberately. With as much fury as Karl had ever seen in a man. "If it had been me, would you have stopped it?"

"I would have tried," Karl barely forced out.

"The way you tried with Amara? Or the way you threatened Uldred? Would you have attacked the Templars holding the brand? Would you have fought Irving when he tried to stop you? Would you have set Wynne aflame? Listen to her scream, burning alive, while the Templars swarmed upon you? With your own death certain before you, would you spend your one final act giving me the courtesy of a swift, clean end, so I wouldn't live out my decades as an automaton, a cautionary tale for all mages to come? Would you do that, if it had been me?" A final bellow, with tears in his eyes, "Would you?!"

Karl imagined the horror all too vividly, his chest tightening, his hands tingling. "I don't... I... Yes. Maker forgive me. Yes. I would."

Anders' lips tightened, eyes lowered. He slumped back into the wall, grabbing two large handfuls of his blond hair as if ready to rip them out, brushing Karl with one arm. "I think I understand now," Anders repeated. "Why you can't love me."


	17. Chapter 17

Somewhere inside, Karl heard his own voice protesting. Angrily insisting that Anders was wrong, all wrong, that there is no can or can’t. He simply does, Void take him, whether he wants to or not. Love isn’t something a man can simply choose not to feel, not to do.

Instead he sat in silence.

He felt heat flowing out his body through his robes and into the cold stones that comprised the walls and floor. And to his side he felt, not warmth from Anders, sitting with scarcely an inch of space between them, merely the absence of cold.

He wanted to apologize, to beg forgiveness for his continued existence, for silently collaborating with the monsters who destroyed Amara, everything that made her who she was. He tried to decide what words he would use, how he might dance around trying to excuse his actions as being self-defense, how much he’d own up to being an instrument of the oppression of his own people. But it was all wrong. Nothing he could say could ever be right.

So he remained, in silence.

This was a lesson he had to learn, eventually. Anders liked to pretend he lived in a world where if he was persistent enough and willing to play enough elaborate games, that he could still have everything a man ought to. Freedom, for a few days at a time. Love. Weakness. Mages didn’t get to have these things. Anders had always just been too stubborn to accept it, and it was time he grew up.

Growing up. Accepting his oppression. Accepting what life he was allowed. Giving up.

Karl would not say such things. Not to him.

Only more silence.

How long had he been here? Should he go? Leave his poor friend be? There were still things he needed to tell him, but now? Which was worse? To be all alone, for days at a time? Or to be trapped next to a man who betrayed him so? Who has nothing to say for himself?

Karl shifted his weight, preparing to stand.

At that Anders started to laugh, then shook his head, and finally spoke again. "And damned if I still don't want you. Every inch of me, like I'm forever on the edge of drowning, wondering when you'll breathe air into my lungs. It doesn't help. Understanding doesn't help. It just means I now appreciate the full horror, and it terrifies me, but clearly not enough to stop.” Anders looked at him again, beautiful amber eyes. "Everything, our whole world is so wrong, and right now the only thing left, the only thing I can imagine being right is being with you.”

He had no right to this, no right to Anders’ continued affection.

Karl kissed him anyway.

It was a quick thing. Gentle, mouth slightly open, barely a second or two before Karl pulled back again.

_There. You won. You have me. Now push me away. Hate me for everything._ “Everything you imagined?” he asked bitterly. Anders looked back at him quizzically. “You still want me? Still think being with me feels right?”

“Maker yes,” Anders said as he dove in eagerly for another kiss. Unbelieving, Karl sat passively as Anders pressed his lips against him and clutched his arm. Anders pulled back again, tentative, confused. “Karl?”

Fuck it. To the Void with it all. Karl had the rest of his life to torture himself, and Anders could have the rest of his life to hate him.

Karl seized him and drew him close, one hand tightly clutching his back, the other slid up the back of his neck into delightfully soft blond hair. This kiss was no quick thing, no gentle courtesy with slightly parted lips, but a frantic, gasping meeting of need and desire and lips and tongues.

Anders tried to pull back for air but Karl held his head close, their noses gently touching as they caught their breath. Karl felt Anders’ hand move from his arm to his face, burying his fingers in the much-discussed beard.

Anders giggled. “And it is remarkably luscious. Ouch!” he said, shifting position.

“No wonder, your knees are grinding into the stone. Here,” Karl said, taking Anders by the hips and pulling him to his lap. “That’s better.”

With that slight bit of elevation Karl found it easy to move his focus a bit down, to his companion’s jaw covered in pale fuzz, then down to his neck. Anders giggled and tried to pull away, “That beard of yours tickles!” Karl responded with a punitive nip, only for Anders practically melt into his hands with a moan. Another, more deliberate bite and Anders was panting and writhing perilously close to Karl’s erection.

_No, we’re certainly not doing that here. Put that away._

He returned his attention to Anders’ mouth, pulling his head down just enough, feeling perfectly soft hair between his fingers. More kissing. There could never be enough kissing. Never would be enough.

By the time the discomfort of sitting on a stone floor with another man in his lap grew powerful enough to stop him Karl could barely feel his own backside. They both switched to lying on the floor, neither of them quite able to fit completely stretched out, but at least stressing their bodies in different places.

Anders looked about ready to climb astride him, but Karl shook his head.

“No…not like this. Not here,” Karl said.

“You’re not going all reluctant on me again, are you? Seems a little late now for you to be wringing your hands about taking liberties with an apprentice.”

Karl sighed. It was time he knew the rest.

“Your Harrowing will be soon. Very soon.”

“Have to say I expected as much.”

“There’s a price, for getting you out of here.” Anders had only been half-right, about how he was too useful and too valuable to waste. The other senior enchanters certainly agreed, but the Templars took a bit more convincing. Between that outburst and the suspicious fire in Uldred’s office, Gregoir needed a reason to believe this wasn’t part of some larger pattern, a reason to believe it wouldn’t happen again.

Karl saw no choice but to break the very first rule.

He wasn’t even sure it was true, exactly, that Anders was in love with Amara, not the way people generally meant, but it was a simple-enough shorthand. A convincing-enough excuse. Everyone had seen it happen before. Futile violent outbursts, suicide attempts, futile violent outbursts that were functionally suicide attempts. Not everyone who made that mistake lived to learn from it, and surely Anders should be given that opportunity. He was a quick study, after all, he would learn.

Better than Karl had.

“That’s when they’ll come for me. I’ll be gone when you wake up,” Karl said. He had seen this happen before, too. Perhaps Irving thought it a kindness to do it while one party was indisposed, or perhaps it was just to cut down on any further disturbances.

“What? Gone? Gone where?”

“Ostwick? Starkhaven, if I’m lucky.” Those were both lies. Karl knew there was only one place he could be sent. “Or Kirkwall.”

“The Gallows? But why?” He asked the question, and in a momentary silence seemed to have answered it himself. “No, Karl, they can’t! I’m the one who messed up, not you! They should send me!”

“They are not,” Karl paused for emphasis, “sending you to the Gallows.” Certainly not after all the trouble he’d gone through to make sure of that.

Anders pouted and whined in protest, insisted he’d find some way to go instead, to take Karl’s place. _Maker’s breath._ It’s one thing to be defiant, impulsive, even sentimental, but this closet chivalry? That was one of the most dangerous possible weaknesses in a mage, and one that only made Karl more determined to protect him while he still could.

“Don’t worry, it won’t be so bad for me. I’ll get to see my favorite mentor again.” Another lie. It had been nearly twenty years since Malcolm was sent to Kirkwall and at least fifteen since his last communication. Perhaps he really had escaped for good, but more likely he’d finally run afoul of the wrong Templar. At least he might finally know. “You remind me of him. Much younger, and with no beard of course.”

“A beard anything like yours?” Anders asked, stroking his chin.

“His was the beard mine aspired to be.” Karl smiled wistfully. “We’ll have to compare, now that mine has filled in. I’ll bet I’ve got more grey.”

“I’ll draw a picture so I can bring it to him. What’s his name?”

“Anders.”

“Oh, what a coincidence! That’s my name too.”

“You’re not going.”

“Try and stop me.”

Karl pressed a hand against his chest and took a long, greedy kiss. “And I know it’s not your name either,” Karl said.

“It is now. Well enough.” Anders sounded oddly melancholy at that. “What? It’s not like I’ll ever go back to the Anderfels, or talk again to anyone who ever knew the old name. It’s not like the parents responsible for it even bothered trying to keep me. The boy with that name, the devoted little Andrastian who dutifully worked the fields and repented his sins, he may as well be dead to everyone who ever knew him. Might as well be dead to me too. Besides, I like Anders better. That guy, he’s a real charmer.”

“I’ll say,” Karl said, kissing him again.

The guard rapped on the door. “Twenty minutes before my shift is up. I would appreciate if you could clear out before my relief gets here. Save me some awkward questions.”

Had he really spent so long here? The hourly bells couldn’t be heard in the dungeon, and with no outside light he couldn’t think of any way to mark the passage of time. Even days might pass without any indication. He shuddered to think what it must be like for Anders stuck in here alone. “Thank you,” Karl replied.

Anders sat up, looking uncertain. “I guess…” he looked down.

Karl kissed him. “It’ll be a few more days before you’re out of here, and before your Harrowing. You aren’t supposed to know exactly when, but I will...and so you will, too.” Karl held his hand, stroking the back of it with his thumb. “The night before, if you’re still interested, I’ll wait for you in that room, where we first…” Karl let his hand glow slightly with healing magic. Anders looked at him with all the eagerness and surprise of a puppy being offered a treat. “We don’t have to do anything, if you decide you don’t want to. I mean it. But we also don’t have to refrain from doing anything, if you decide you do want to. However you want to say goodbye.” _It will almost certainly be the last time I ever lay eyes on you._

“I’ll come for you,” Anders said. Karl found himself unexpectedly stifling a laugh, then saw Anders’ face flush red. Karl wondered if everyone’s favorite promiscuous apprentice might not be quite so worldly as he advertised. “Not like that. I mean, yes! Like that! I—“ Very red. “But what I meant was, to Kirkwall. The Gallows.”

“Anders…”

“I mean it. If there’s one thing…” Anders swallowed, and sat up a bit straighter. “I’m done with holidays. And not just because I suspect next time the consequences will be more than a slap on the wrist and stern talking-to.” He looked around the tiny cell as he said that. “The next time I run I’m finding a way to stay gone. I don’t know how yet, but somehow I will. And once I do I am coming for you.”

Karl smiled, Maker help him. “I know.”


End file.
